Explicit Instruction (28 page)

‘Hello
, Lover,’ Flick said to the man sitting on the single bed in a room not much larger than their accommodation in the shack a lifetime ago.

Seeing him now, here like this, was unexpected but he bolstered her strength, reminded her that the fight was worth it. His anger was written all over his face, Flick was familiar with the feeling.

‘You’re like a fucking boomerang, you know that?’

Rushe was angry, he sat forward
with his elbows on his knees, and his hands clasped. ‘Why are you here?’ Flick asked.

‘Me?’ he said
, flying off the bed. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

‘They snatched me off the street,’ Flick said
, and her teeth began to clack again.

‘Don’t tell me you
went back to your old place. You should’ve stayed with your family.’

‘You told me there was no more danger. You said no one would come looking for me.’ The latter statement had been made when he liberated her the first time
, and a lot had transpired since then, but still he had said it.

‘You have no idea what you’ve walked—‘

‘Look at me!’ she screamed, matching his anger with her own. ‘Do you see the bruises? Do you see the blood? Don’t tell me what I know! I know damn well what they’re going to do with me! And I know they’ll take pleasure in it. Don’t you fucking stand there and tell me that I don’t know, Rushe, don’t you do it! Don’t you dare!’

‘Take
off your clothes,’ Rushe said, grabbing the back neck of his tee-shirt to pull it off over his head.

‘What
?’ she asked, somewhat deflated by his indifference to her outburst.

‘Your... is that a uniform?’

‘Yes,’ Flick said. ‘You want to have sex with me? With everything that’s going on you think...? You want to have sex with me?’ Flick didn’t know whether to laugh, or beat him about the head.

But he shunted his tee-shirt toward her. ‘
You’re cold.’

With those clipped
words, he turned his back. At the reminder, she began to heave off her wet clothes.

‘Tell me what they did to you,’ Rushe said
, still with his back to her. The tension in his shoulders kept him rigid, and his huffed words revealed his own frustration.

He hadn’t done that since her early days in the shack
, when he knew she felt violated.

‘No,’ she said
, putting on his tee-shirt. At the clean, masculine smell of him brushing her nose the tears sprang up again.

‘No?’

‘No,’ she said again, then kicked her sodden uniform to the corner. Another torn dress, another cell, another single bed, and all because her cab broke down.

The bed was less than two feet awa
y, but when her throat closed, Flick let her legs give out, and fell to the floor. Lying in the foetal position, she covered her face with both hands and let herself sob. Her body ached, her soul screamed for mercy, and no one could deliver.

These horrible, despicable, evil men would taunt and torture her
, and then her body would be sold on as property. The possibilities of where she could end up were too petrifying for speculation.

But they didn’t see her now. Soon every tear she shed would be to the depraved pleasure of whoever purchased her. The
people she imagined buying a person would have to be sick.

Whatever use they found for her it would be humiliating and excruciatin
g. She had to void her thoughts; she had to void any feelings she had for anything. That child in the other room seemed to have managed it, Brianna and the others did, and Serendipity certainly had. Then Flick understood. It wasn’t about them breaking her, yes that gave them pleasure, but she had to break. Fighting would get her nowhere and if Flick let herself feel, if she let herself hope, then her torture would endure.

Serendipity had managed to block it out, after all these months in that room, and with these men. Numbing yourself to reality, teaching yourself to detach
, it was a defence mechanism. Flick had to make it a way of life, because whatever life she had left would be too unbearable to acknowledge.

When a heavy ha
nd landed on top of her head, she hissed out, throwing her anger and hatred to whoever dared to touch her. But then Flick saw him. With concern, and pain, and a torture all of his own, Rushe sat there in front of her. Sat there screaming an apology with his eyes that she knew he’d never vanquish. None of this was his fault, and none of it was hers, but that really only made it worse.

‘Kitten.’

One murmured word and everything was said that needed to be. Crawling toward him, Rushe opened his arms, and she let herself fall into him, fall into that embrace that could shield her from everything. Maybe he couldn’t make the physical fall away, neither of them could help themselves here, or each other. But they had this – perhaps the last pleasant experience she would ever have.

He let her sob,
and stroked her waterlogged hair while he held her so tight, so close, that she wanted to believe their bodies could forever merge to one. When the tears stopped, Flick was terrified to look at him. He’d never be cruel, not now, but he’d want to comfort her, to tell her that he would take care of things and save her. Except there was nothing he could do, and so that would only serve to frustrate him.

‘Why aren’t you with Simone?’ she whispered
, closing her eyes, and pressing her damp cheek against his hot, bare chest.

‘I didn’t want Simone,’ he said.

Flick tried to decipher what that meant, and how he’d ended up here, so she lifted her attention. Keeping herself curled in his arms, Flick let her head relax on his upper arm to switch her view higher.

‘You didn’t want Simone?’ she repeated.

‘No.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘It means she’s a whore with no appeal.’

‘But I’m a whore.’

With his large hand, Rushe clumsily shoved her hair from her face. ‘No, you’re not.’

‘I’m not?’

‘No,’ he said, and she noticed he wouldn’t look her in the eye.

In all that had happened reality seemed to have blurred with fiction
, and in her dizzy mind Flick tried to recall what was truth, and what was lies.

‘
So much has happened.’

‘How long have you been here?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where have they been keeping you?’

‘Down here,’ she said. ‘I was in a room with a group of women. They have a teenager in there Rushe, did you know that?’

His hand stopped. ‘No.’

Urging her back to his chest, Rushe deliberately tucked her head under his chin and she knew he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, look at her face anymore.

‘I was in there and then they brought us all in to that room where you were.’

‘Who hit you?’

‘
Skeeve,’ she said. ‘Mostly. But I deserved it... at least I gave it back to him. I might not be strong, but I have a smart mouth... or so I’m frequently told.’

‘Did anyone touch you...? Did they...?’

‘No one raped me,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you’re asking.’

‘That won’t last.’

Rushe didn’t know how to sugar coat anything. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked. ‘Why are you locked up?’

‘You heard them out there, they don’t trust me.’

‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘I thought once you were... you didn’t have sex with Simone?’

‘No.’

‘When you refused, they put you in here,’ Flick said.

‘Yes.’

‘They think you’re a cop. They can’t just kill you if you’re law enforcement, because that would bring their house down.’

‘I guess.’

‘Victor’s a piece of work,’ she said. ‘He asked for information.’

Rushe tensed
, and while his body went rigid, his embrace loosened. ‘What did you tell them?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything.’

‘Victor asked you questions?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But he got angry when I wouldn’t answer them,
and that’s when he sent me out with John and Shiv, who brought me back here.’

‘John? What did he ask?’

‘They wanted to know about you, about anything you’ve told me, about anything I saw.’

That last statement made him draw back
, and Flick was left alone on the floor when he separated himself from her to sit a few feet away. ‘What did you tell them?’

G
od he was good, that anger was back and he ground his teeth together. ‘I told them that you had a monster stuffed animal collection,’ she said, but he only glared.

Now he could look her in the eye, now that he was angry with her. Distance was so much easier to accept than familiarity.

Flick used the bed to pull herself up, and she slithered onto it letting every muscle in her body loosen.

‘What are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘Tell me what you said!’

Flick didn’t even bother to open her eyes. From the angle of his voice, she knew he was on his feet, and at the side of the bed. But letting her swollen cheek sink into the mattress Flick took this last chance to rest.

‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ she said. ‘Why do you think I’m cold, and wet, and covered in bruises? Do I look like someone who blabbed to save themselves?’

‘They tortured you,’ he whispered.

‘They didn’t get onto the fierce looking metal instruments, so don’t trouble yourself. I told them that yes, you were worth dying for
, even though you were fucking another woman at that moment in time. Or we thought you were.’ Flick couldn’t open her eyes. ‘Now if you don’t mind I haven’t slept or eaten since I got here, and the adrenaline’s wearing off. So unless you’re willing to share your body heat, then leave me alone... please.’

Rushe
didn’t say anything else, so she took that as a sign that he’d conceded his argument. If Flick had told them what they wanted to know she’d probably be dead right now. Shiv certainly would’ve taken great pleasure in cutting her, since that was his thing as Rushe had told her. Skeeve might be allowed to take a turn with her, but she doubted Shiv had that kind of restraint; acknowledging that pertinent fact actually made Flick feel better because she’d rather be dead than let Skeeve come anywhere near her. But if they beat her again, or she was restrained, or unconscious, she’d never be able to fight him off.

Skeeve
would be the tip of a large iceberg if she went out with the other women tomorrow. Flick didn’t know if women were trafficked in this country, or if they’d be taken overseas. The logistics weren’t what concerned her, but she knew nothing about this barbarity. Like most of the population, they were words without meaning for her, not any true meaning because how could society face this ugly exploitation? That humanity was possible of such atrocious acts really dismayed her, as it would the vast majority of people.

But when she was gone from here Rushe would be left alone. Not that she was much use to him when she was here, b
ut Flick would wonder about him. She’d always think of him, the last man to ever make love to her.

At the touch of skin
, her reflex was to pounce away, but Rushe scooped her up from the bed then draped her over him, just as he’d done in the shack, only this time it was different. Flick let herself look up at him, but with one hand behind his head, and the other on her hair, Rushe focused on the ceiling.

Flick pressed her lips to his torso
, and gently rubbed her cheek on him, then let her body slacken a little. Eventually they would come to get her, or take Rushe away. They lay here together on this narrow bed with the knowledge that a bomb hid under them. Only this bomb didn’t have a timer that they could watch the seconds descend on. Without warning, they would be torn apart, and when they were Flick knew they’d never see each other again.

A piercing scream jolted Flick awake, and on springing upward her knee landed in his abdomen. But she ignored Rushe’s displeasure to take
quick stock of her surroundings; a room, painted black, the bed here in the corner, and Rushe.

‘Rushe,’ she sighed out
, and flopped back down onto him.

‘A harsh wake up call,’ he grumbled.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, squeezing her hand between them to pat the part of him she’d kneed.

‘No problem. Just don’t aim further south next time.’

Everywhere was sore with bruises and tense muscles, but lying out on Rushe was an experience she’d missed. ‘What time is it?’

‘Eleven thirty,’ he said
, and she had to peek at him.

‘How do you know that?’ He took his hand from the back of his head to show his watch on his wrist.

‘Ah,’ she said, settling down again. ‘At night, or in the morning?’

‘PM,’ he said. ‘We’ve got about four hours.’